About Me

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

I've been painting my DE for the past weeks and completed 20 out of 30 Black Ark Corsairs. Now that I'm used to painting them already, each model would take about 45 minutes to finish. I'm out of black primer to do the last 10 man so will have to stop doing them for a while.

30 Black Ark Corsairs, lead by Lorkhir Felheart (usually played as a Unit Champion)

I believe there must be several types of Sea Dragons in the Old World. Hence, the difference in colours.

Now I'm gonna move on to the Battle Standard Bearer. I'm not sure what to draw on the banner though. Red Hair Shanks? The Whitebeards? Or a proper DE motifs?

RG : Tactical to man the Quadgun. Assault Squad 2 next to them, behind the ADL. SRaven and Dread will come from reserves.

Eldar : Everything (except Wraithfighters of course) deployed behind the 2 small Bastion (played as Ruin) at the centre.

Infiltrators : Shrike and Assault Squad 1 infiltrated on top of the Skyshield. Cypher and 3 Grav-Centurions infiltrated right next to them. 1st Sniper Squad infiltrated behind the Bastion to the left (played as Dilapidated Bastion - AV12) while Sniper Squad 2 Infiltrated behind the tall Bastion to the right (also played as Dilapidated Bastion - AV12).

Turn 1. Eldar seized the initiative!!. After all the spellcasting, they lost one Warlock from Perils. They begin the game hunting Shrike and his unit. 2 Wave Serpents moved atop the Small Bastion and shoot, killing Shrike and 1 Marine. It was followed by the Fire Prisms, but with Stealth from Night Fight protecting my men, they killed only 1 more guy from the unit.

The Autarch and Warlocks turbo boosted 36 inches, stopping behind the tall bastion where the Scouts were hiding. The 3rd Wave Serpent moved flat out to the far left, beside the square bunker. Despite getting 1st Blood and Slay The Warlord, the first Eldar wasn't so damaging.

On my turn, I sent the Assault Squad 1 to destroy the closest Fire Prisms. They wrecked it with well placed Krak Grenades. Grav Centurions immobilised the Wave Serpent right in front of them with their Gravcannon.

A Drop Pod landed next to the other Fire Prism and the Dreadnought stepped out of it. Now it had to choose between Fire Prism and Wave Serpents as target. I went for the Wave Serpent to stop it from moving away in the next turn, shoot the Multimelta to the rear and Immobilised it.

Assult Squad 2 assaulted the Jetbikers, killed 2 with Hammer of Wrath, and one more with normal attacks. The Veteran Sargeant fought the Autarch to a draw. My Marines won combat but the Eldar were fearless due to a certain item.

Turn 2. Both of the Hemlock Wraithfighters came in, one from the left and the other from the right. Both going to wards the centre. My interceptot failed to destroy the one coming from the right. It killed 5 Assault Marines from Squad 1, sending them fleeing back with a failed morale check. The other one targeted the Centurions, causing one wound. The Wave Serpents also shoot at the Centurions, causing another wound with the Serpent Shield (1 guy died) and pinned them to the ground. The last Fire Prism moved to behind my Dreadnought and shoot it's S9 AP1 cannon from merely 1 inch away but missed! (:lol:)

The Autarch killed my Sargeant in challenge. The Assault Squad 2 failed break test and flee 6 inches, short by about 3-4 inches from the table edge.

On my turn, the marines rallied and moved forward. Assault Squad 1 to the bastion near the Drop Pod while Assault Marines 2 jumped over the Jetbike unit, towards the 3rd Wave Serpents. My Storm Raven came in from my right, destroyed a Wraithfighter and took one Hull Point from the leftmost Wave Serpent with the Lasscannon. Later, the Centurions wrecked the same Serpent with a lucky snap shot, 5 Dire Avengers disembarked atop the ruin.

Dreadnought destroyed the last Fire Prism. Deathwind Launcher from the Drop Pod hit all the Dire Avengers, but killed only one guy. Assault Squad 2 assaulted the 3rd Wave Serpent, but failed to do anything. Snipers killed one Warlock.

Turn 3. The last Wraithfighter casted Terrify to my Centurions, but they held their ground. It then flew towards my Tactical squad, shot the D-scythe and killed a marine. The 3rd Wave Serpent sent my Assault Squad 2 running with a Tank Shock. Then it shot at my Tacticals and killed one marine. The last Wave Serpent shot at the Centurions but failed to cause any wound. Autarch and the Warlocks killed 2 more marines from Assault Squad 2, forcing them to flee off table. Dire Avengers moved to the edge of the ruin and shoot at Assault Squad 1 below, killed 1 and send the last two guys running back 11 inches.

My 3rd Turn. The Assault Squad 1 rallied and jumped next to the dilapidated Bastion to my left. Storm Raven killed 3 Dire Avengers on top of the ruin. Centurions wrecked the 2nd Serpent, only 2 passengers may disembarked due to lack of space on top of the ruin. Snipers killed the last two Warlocks. Tactical Squad took down the last Wraithfighter with Quadgun.

Turn 4. The last Wave Serpent shoot at the Centurions, took one wound off Cypher. Autarch wrecked the tall Bastion with Fusion Gun, killing 3 Snipers inside the collapsed building. 2 Snipers succesfully got out of the building, but was killed by the Autarch in the ensuing Assault Phase.

In my turn, Cypher destroyed the last Serpent with Plasma Pistols, 3 Dire Avengers died in the explosion. Storm Raven killed the lone Avenger on top of the ruin. Quadgun took one wound off the Autarch. Snipers killed one Avenger from the 2nd Avenger Squad.

Post-game Assessment :
My opponent wasn't a new guy in 40k. But this was the first game my opponent had with his Eldar. So the lack of experience with the army truly shows in this game. His weapon of choice for Wave Serpents isn't optimized. EML can never beat Scatter Laser with its Twin-linking ability. Summore the Warlock Council isn't as strong with Autarch as compared to with Farseer.

Having said that, it was indeed an interesting Eldar army. Playing around with lots of pinning weapon and Hemlock can be really damaging. Unlike other Eldar list I've seen here, this one requires a lot more thinking and is really scary if played correctly. I'm sure he will come back much stronger the next time we fight.

This was also the first time I used Cypher in a real battle. But after so many play test back home, I'm no noob to his tricks already. Him and his Grav-Centurions were easily the best unit in the game :)

Monday, February 10, 2014

I have always prefer Warhammer Fantasy Battles compared to 40k and the 8th Edition is easily the best of all edition we have so far. There has been an increase in the number of WFB players and we can see WFB being played almost every day of the weekend at Hobby Forge. Fun moment, I hope it will last a long time.

Last Friday (7th Feb 14), my DE had a match against our misguided kin, the High Elves. The battle was promising for us DE, but it had to end prematurely due to a distress call from my opponent's family. Looking at my opponent's army across the table, it was almost fully painted and that kinda put me to shame. The guy was just a newbie with only 4-5 months into the game. Of course his army was smaller with 2 Dragons, but having it all fully painted was quite an achievement for a newbie.

Me on the other hand, began my DE 10 years back in 2004. After 10 years, they are only about 70% painted. They don't even have proper movement trays. So that night when I reach home, I took out my tools, the movement tray set, and began working on it. By 4.30 am, it's done and as you can see in the picture below, they are now properly organized and ready for battle.

Missing from the picture was 8 Dark Riders, 10 Shades, a Dreadlord on Cold One, a Sorceress, and a BSB on Cold One

The following days I started painting the Corsairs whenever I can and completed 5 minis in addition to the 5 painted years back. I will for now focus on this unit and try to complete as much as possible before the next gaming session.

In the last post, I said that I would finish the 2nd RG Sniper Squad in about a week. With the focus to the DE Corsairs, I now put the Snipers aside for a while. Though I did painted one of them just to try out the colour scheme. Not bad eh :)

Let us pray I can keep the momentum and finish the whole 30 man unit. 10 done, 20 more to go.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

This wasn't supposed to take too long, but suddenly got so busy with kids (homeworks) and CNY (despite being a Malay Hahaha!) and the progress were delayed slightly. But last night, I finally finished this small unit of Snipers with one Heavy Bolter. After a few play test, this unit is fast becoming a favorite in my Raven Guard list.

4 Snipers, 1 Heavy Bolter with Hellfire Rounds ...

... and camo cloaks

Raven Guard Sniper Team in action

I have another unit of snipers to paint. Should be able to finish them in a week I think.
Till then, have a nice day and Happy Chinese New Year to all my Chinese friends.